thanks! do you think utilities would stay online for any extended period of time or is this scenario taking out society for years?

This is something that's hard to predict. So much of normal life in the U.S. is heavily labor dependent. It takes lots of skilled workers to run the power grid; enormous amounts of labor to transport food and goods; hundreds of man-hours to keep communications, infrastructure, government going... Logically, if enough people get sick (or self isolate and refuse to go to work), these will start to fail. Which will probably lead to a domino like, cascading failure (if the power goes out, water won't flow, gasoline and diesel won't pump, transport will slow down, cell phones won't work, etc, etc). I'm sure every effort will be made to keep utilities working; whether that will be possible will depend on how severe any pandemic / biological attack is, how long it lasts, and if people get scared enough they refuse to work...

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordOpie

I'm more nervous about a pandemic than I probably should be but we have national Jewish health hospital which brings more serious respiratory cases here. like that extremely resistant tuberculosis a few years ago. I can see a pandemic escaping from that hospital.

Actually, you're probably NOT more nervous than you should be. Pandemic scares the heck out of me, it's one of those things people underestimate because they don't know how bad it can get. Economic collapse, terrorism, sinister conspiracies: Many here focus on those, but the worst Man can do isn't a patch on what Mother Nature can unleash.

Ebolapox? Now that one makes my uneasy-lump itch..... Of the Four Horsemen, plague is the one that is the scariest, for most of us. That said, people are upset, and when we're upset, we humans get pessimistic.

Being in sparcely populated area may not work. I live in such area and back in 1918 there were even fewer interaction between people, no electricity, no paved roads, most people were growing their own food etc., yet about 25% percent of local population got sick. Some of possible explanations were mailman visits etc., but we really don't know. To me, this is a great mystery.

one suggestion is to isolate for six weeks... is that the minimum or an estimate average guess? what signs would you look for before venturing out again? or is there a maximum duration where you'd feel very comfortable that the pandemic ran its course?

one suggestion is to isolate for six weeks... is that the minimum or an estimate average guess? what signs would you look for before venturing out again? or is there a maximum duration where you'd feel very comfortable that the pandemic ran its course?

This is what happened in 1918: in Philly, they decided six weeks is enough and resumed schooling. Which of course, killed the students. And then the statisticians used that example for 80 years to prove that quarantine doesn't work. The epidemic itself lasted 2 full years. Moreover it was implicated in outbreaks of other serious diseases for years to come. Apparently, nowhere on Earth was safe.

There was at least one town in the inter-mountain western U.S. that posted signs to the effect of "step off the train here and go directly to jail for quarantine" that also avoided infection.

Few towns were willing to restrict commerce to that extent, however.

Plus as it was wartime authorities would not cancel propaganda (e.g. "buy war bonds!") rallies in large U.S. cities (IIRC, Philadelphia was particularly hard hit because of this)

Quote:

Originally Posted by GG42

Being in sparcely populated area may not work. I live in such area and back in 1918 there were even fewer interaction between people, no electricity, no paved roads, most people were growing their own food etc., yet about 25% percent of local population got sick. Some of possible explanations were mailman visits etc., but we really don't know. To me, this is a great mystery.

The best thing to do in the event of a biological event is to stay at home and avoid close contact with other people. Should you have to go outside for whatever, keep your distance as best you can from other people. Use a paper towel to handle things that have been handled by possibly infected people (or sterilize them if practical). Exercise basic precautions such as a surgical mask, goggles and disposable gloves and wash yourself and launder clothes thoroughly afterward should you need to interact with strangers. Keep your house clean and free of flies, mosquitoes, fleas and other biting insects.

The ways you get infected are thru mucous membranes, inhalation, eating/drinking, insect vectors or exposure of an open wound. Cover those and you will be safe. No disease vector survives well in sunlight and fresh air. Unless somebody specifically targets your house as ground zero or you are caring for infected people, you are not going to need positive ventilation, nanofiltered air, moon suits or the other precautions a hospital uses when dealing with infectious and deadly diseases.